with less than 48- hours until the u-s economy goes over what's being called the fiscal cliff - lawmakers are locked in a fierce face-off over a set of spending cuts and tax hikes. >>> "we're apart on some pretty big issues." "i'm willing to get this done, but i need a dance partner." >> reporter: on n-b-c's meet the press, president obama made a final pitch for his plan to preserve bush era tax cuts for everyone but the wealthiest americans. >>> "regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be to make sure that taxes on middle class families do not go up that would hurt our economy badly." >> reporter: a major sticking point continues to be the annual income level at which those tax increases should kick in. the threshold has wavered from 250-thousand dollars to as high as one-million dollars. republicans argue the country doesn't have a tax revenue problem, it has a spending problem. "unless we do something about spending, the government will continue to get bigger and the deficit will continue to get bigger." >> reporter: following the president's interview, speaker of t